Most of the energy monitoring tools on the market right now gather aggregate information about the overall electricity use of a home. But the new eMonitor from PowerHouse Dynamics could change all this with circuit level monitoring. The eMonitor solution combines hardware, software, and service elements to provide home electricity use, electricity cost, and carbon footprint information by the minute. Past and present information is then available online and on the iPhone (starting in about Q2 2010).

Nearly two years ago, I followed reports by Curbed LA, which was tracking the sale of the Office of Mobile Design's ShowHouse. At the time, the one-bedroom, one-bathroom home was listed at $175,000, and I always wondered what happened with it — until the other day when Allison Arieff tweeted a photo of the Jennifer Siegal-designed structure on a beautiful desert lot. The 720 square-foot portable house found a new home.

You've probably seen one of the latest Apple commercials. The husband turns to his wife and asks, "Did we turn off the lights." The savvy wife, with her iPhone and Schlage LiNK app, responds with something like, "WE turned off the lights," while she does the same on her phone without her husband's help.

The commercial caught my attention, and I wanted to see what kind of capabilities this Schlage LiNK app had. Turns out the system is powered by Z-Wave technology to smarten typically unintelligent aspects of living. Some of the things you can do include:

A few months ago, Alchemy set this weeHouse in Dundee, New York, and it's now complete. The two-bedroom, two-bathroom home sits at the end of a private road on Seneca Lake. On the exterior, the prefab has corrugated steel siding, while on the interior, there's bamboo flooring and wall wrap, doors and windows made with FSC-certified wood, and Energy Star appliances.

The Fourth Annual Green Building Survey, published by Allen Matkins, CTG, and Green Building Insider, was just released. It’s quick and to the point with some interesting perspective on the attitude of design and construction professionals. That is, green construction and design remains a top priority, while LEED certification may not necessarily carry the same weight. The survey was conducted in February 2010 and received over 1,600 responses.